There has been a conventional system that includes a plurality of control devices. A CPU (central processing unit), a microcontroller, an FPGA (field-programmable gate array), and a SoC (system-on-a-chip) are examples of the control device.
In the system described above, the plurality of control devices are engaged in operating the system while sharing processing with one another. Thus, even if an anomaly has occurred in (a problem has occurred with) one of the plurality of control devices, it is possible to keep an operation of the system performed with the other control devices in a normal state.
In recent years, with the development of multicore or many-core processors, there has emerged a high-power and high-performance control device, which makes it possible to provide a configuration in which the overall operation of a system is controlled using one high-power and high-performance control device.
In the conventional system, when an anomaly has occurred in a control device, the control device is restored by resetting the control device. Resetting performed using a watchdog is its typical example.
An endoscopic system is known that includes a processor device including a CPU that functions as, for example, a DIP (digital image processing circuit), an anomaly detection circuit, an initialization circuit, and an alternative DIP (see, for example, Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2010-4979). In the processor device included in the endoscopic system, when the anomaly detection circuit has detected an anomaly in the DIP, the initialization circuit outputs a reset signal to the DIP and the CPU in which the DIP is in operation is reset. Then, the alternative DIP performs image processing until the DIP is restarted, and the DIP restarts the image processing after the DIP is restarted. Further, an endoscopic device is also known in which a processor device having this configuration is configured using a well-known virtual technology (see, for example, Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2010-4979). In this endoscopic device, the processor device includes hardware resources, a hypervisor, a first OS (operation system), a second OS, and a third OS. The configuration is made such that software that corresponds to the DIP described above operates on the first OS, software that corresponds to the alternative DIP described above operates on the second OS, and software that operates as the anomaly detection circuit and the initialization circuit described above operates on the third OS.